Hot Copy by Ruby Barrett

Author:Ruby Barrett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Carina Press
Published: 2021-01-12T17:03:39+00:00

Chapter 29: Wesley

I push down on the door handle, lifting at the same time so that it won’t make that ungodly creaking it tends to make when it’s cool at night. The house is dark and quiet as I toe my shoes off, but my body is amped. I’m excited, like I’ve just come home from a winning game and I want to wake up the whole house and tell them about it.

“Where have you been?” Amy yells from an armchair as she flicks on a lamp in the living room. I jump so high I almost hit my head on the ceiling.

“Holy balls, Amy.” I hold my hand over my pounding heart. “You scared the crap out of me.”

She rises from the chair, an old quilt wrapped around her shoulders and her polka-dot fleece pajamas peeking out underneath. “I asked you a question.”

She sounds so much like Mom it sends a shiver down my spine.

“Have you been waiting up for me?”

She comes to a stop in the entranceway. “Yes. I got home from work and you weren’t here. I was worried!”

“Okay. Well...sorry. I was at Corrine’s.” I scratch the back of my head and look toward the stairs, anywhere that’s not at her.

“It’s almost one o’clock in the morning,” Amy hisses. “What were you doing there for so long? Did you fall asleep? Were you going to sleep over?” Her voice rises an octave with each question.

“No, we just lost track of time.” I jog up the stairs. Amy thumps up the hardwood behind me.

“Are you, like, in an affair now?”

“I think you’re sensationalizing things a little.”

I shoulder open our shared bathroom door and pull my toothbrush out of the holder. After unscrewing the cap on the tube of toothpaste with my teeth, I spit it back onto the counter, squeezing the tube and getting toothpaste all over my hands.

“Why are you so upset about this?” I try to keep my voice low and shove the toothbrush in my mouth, missing my teeth completely and almost choking myself on it.

Amy watches me in the mirror as I gag and splutter and finally, like nothing happened, begin to brush my teeth.

“I get home at half past eleven, Wes. And you weren’t here. You’re always here. You’re dependable like that. I can set my watch to you. This thing you’re doing? It’s not dependable and it’s not like you.”

She steps into the bathroom, standing just behind me, meeting my eyes in the mirror as I brush, spit, repeat. Her tone softens, turns questioning. “A few weeks ago you hated this woman.”

“I never hated her,” I mumble around the foam in my mouth. “I strongly disliked.”

It’s only a little bit of a lie. I hated the things she made me do, and sometimes I felt a deep sense of resentment. I don’t know if hindsight is clouding my judgement or not but I’m certain that I never hated.

“Well, you never made that clear to me.” She points to her chest. “You made me hate her, too.

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